I'm back from attending the Fall ERE Expo 2009 in Hollywood, Florida and I can safely say that it was one of the best conference experiences that I've had yet! It's also safe to say that I suck at "live-blogging" conferences, because I really get wrapped up in learning from the session leaders and interacting with other conference attendees. But apparently I've got some skills at "live tweeting"... (Is there a job where I can get paid to do that?)
So here's a wrap-up from around the recruito-sphere (and HRo-sphere), while I let the good stuff that was shared digest and marinate for future posts...
AWESOMENESS: All conference presentation slide decks and videos are available on the ERE Expo Blog.
Steve Fogarty - Recruiting Captain and Steve Bonomo - Head of Global Recruiting at adidas covered a lot of ground in their "Impossible is Nothing" Recruiting presentation. The Steve's talked about the importance of employment branding, metrics, candidate experience and asking forgiveness rather than waiting for permission to make things happen. They also discussed their new branded and interactive Careers site and Fogarty does a great job of capturing some of the trends he noted from attending and presenting at the Expo on his own blog - Recruiting Revolution.
On HRmarketer Blog, Jonathan Goodman summarizes his thoughts and takeaways from the conference including one of the many great quotes shared in the presentation by Tony Blake - Director of Recruiting at DaVita. It's from Michael Foster - Founder & Chairman of the Human Capital Institute: "The next killer app in recruiting is - the recruiter" - ERE Fall Expo '09: The next killer recruiting app. If you're a Recruiter, hopefully, you are at least on version 2.0 by now...
"If networking is King, then Twitter is Queen" declares Sarah White - who was inspired to share her thoughts on how Twitter enhances the conference experience by a photo of Mr. Recruiter Tweeter himself - @TheRecruiterGuy - wearing a t-shirt proclaiming "I'm Huge on Twitter". (indeed he is)
Sarah also recaps her conference experience in ERE Expo - The best HR Conference I have been to yet - Behind the Scenes - which includes a link to some great photos from the event as well.
Jason Buss - VP, Talent Acquisition & Diversity at Ameriprise Financial managed to find 10 tweets from the thousands shared at the conference to capture his experience in ERE Recruiting Expo Re-cap, Twitter Style and he also snagged an interview with Expo Chairperson Kevin Wheeler - Social Media & Recruiting: Do We Have It Wrong? (Stay tuned to Fistful of Talent for my upcoming post/interview with Kevin following his session on What Will 2010 Bring? Insightful stuff from a Talent "futurist"!)
Industry Guru Gerry Crispin believes that the ERE Expo 2009 will be a Tough Act to Follow due to a little giveback (the ERE Charity Poker Classic which raised $10,000), a lot of Community, a lot of Learning and a Trend or Two. Gerry's always way out in front on talent management issues. We'd be wise to pay attention - although sitting next to Gerry at the Poker game didn't seem to help me much. :)
HR Pro Sharlyn Lauby makes a great point in her post on hr bartender encouraging conference organizers to embrace the opportunity to share content freely and allow attendees to actively participate as ERE has successfully done. Sharon states that "It’s time for conference organizers to realize that social networking is a key component of the conference experience. Attendees want to tweet, post photos and videos and share their experiences – while the event is taking place." <I agree!>
Senior Editor at SmartBrief - Mary Ellen Slayter puts her journalist skills on display with her post "Where Social Media Meets Our Biases" and cautions against its use in the employment process: "Prolific isn’t competent. A social media maven, who has figured out how to get their name out there in all these channels, isn’t necessarily a better fit for a job than someone who hasn’t adopted these tools. Someone can have an amazing professional network and not have a single Twitter follower. Social media communities can quickly get cliquish; make sure you use these tools to broaden your networks, not push people out."
Newly announced chairperson of ERE's next Social Recruiting Summit in NYC - Laurie Ruettimann of Punk Rock HR - continues the "networking is the best part of attending conferences" theme by giving props to the inspiring Women of #EREExpo. Indeed. We're planning to take over the world soon... so watch out!
Laurie also posted her thoughts on a frequent question that came up at the conference "Should Recruiting Report in to HR?". Granted, this was a conference filled mostly with Recruiters, so when it was suggested during one presentation that HR should report to Recruiting, the audience cheered. For the record, I'm with Laurie on this one.
Leanne Chase of careerlife connection found the secret for connecting with and engaging attendees on the Trade Show floor to garner interest in her company focused on flexibility issues in the workplace. All it takes is some food, a few blow up chairs and a guy wearing your shirt - Tales from the booth at ERE.
And finally, Stephanie Lloyd shares her thoughts and several photos in her post Wrap-up: ERE Expo 2009, as well as a video interview with yours truly, which I'll leave you with below. In summary - thanks to David Manaster, Scott Baxt and the ERE crew - the Fall ERE EXPO 2009 ROCKED - so start making plans for Spring 2010 in San Diego!
